eReaderJoy: thoughts and news from Eolake Stobblehouse about the wonderful new platform of tablets and e-reading devices. Some say, one of the biggest advances to reading since Gutenberg (Okay, I said that).

"Blowing on the embers of the ebook conflagration"

Monday, July 11, 2011

Too good to be true? (Updated, I got mine)

What is this then? A real 7-inch Android tablet with color- and touch-screen, wifi and all, for 98 dollars? The iMito definitely seems too good to be true, but it has good reviews. (Oddly, I can't find it on Amazon US, but I did find it (and buy it) as Tabtech M009S on Am UK.)

Compare it to the brand new Google reader device: too boring to not be true. It looks just like a Kindle, only 1.5 generations behind. I'd like to know what their thinking is behind this, who would be interested in it? For the same price, why not just buy a Kindle, which has a proven track record, a huge book selection behind it, and millions of highly enthusiastic users...

Update:
Stephen said:

Not a scam, just a cheap tablet. Resistive touch screen, Telechips TCC8902 chipset limited memory. Not particularly bad either, if you are ok with the resolution (slightly problematic for manga, fine for reading) and don't mind a resistive touchscreen. The TCC8902 chipset is surprisingly quick and decodes anything you can throw at it. The downside is that the TCC8902 has horrid power management so expect crappy battery life.All told a decent tablet for secondary use.Note that Daily Deals has the Sylvania 7" for $80 today and woot had the quite serviceable Archos 7" Home Tablet for about $80.Basically pretty mainline for last years "Shenzen" tablets. Better units are presently available for ~$100 new right now. These tablets are fine personal media players, e book players, alarm clocks etc. They offer a decent luminous screen and function well. For home use when a charger is at hand they are excellent.I've given quite a few of these to friends with rave reviews.Tablets are not particularly expensive, and next years ~$100 will be smack dab in the "good enough" column.

Update: I got mine. It's not bad. If I consider it without taking the low price into consideration, I'd give it a C-. If I do take the price into consideration, I'd give it a B+. Pretty amazing.

It's all plastic of course. The resistive screen which demands harder presses than an iPad screen, takes getting used to. You can't really "tap", you have to press. I think the price and size makes it a good take-anywhere unit, it fits in a large pocket, and if it's stolen or lost it's $100, not 300 or 500. (Modified by reported low battery life, which I haven't tested yet.)

3 comments:

Not a scam, just a cheap tablet. Resistive touch screen, Telechips TCC8902 chipset limited memory. Not particularly bad either, if you are ok with the resolution (slightly problematic for manga, fine for reading) and don't mind a resistive touchscreen. The TCC8902 chipset is surprisingly quick and decodes anything you can throw at it. The downside is that the TCC8902 has horrid power management so expect crappy battery life.All told a decent tablet for secondary use.Note that Daily Deals has the Sylvania 7" for $80 today and woot had the quite serviceable Archos 7" Home Tablet for about $80.Basically pretty mainline for last years "Shenzen" tablets. Better units are presently available for ~$100 new right now. These tablets are fine personal media players, e book players, alarm clocks etc. They offer a decent luminous screen and function well. For home use when a charger is at hand they are excellent.I've given quite a few of these to friends with rave reviews.Tablets are not particularly expensive, and next years ~$100 will be smack dab in the "good enough" column

Remember when Apple first introduced the iPhone. They sold it for a very high price and then dropped the price a lot a few months later. People were upset at the sudden price drop. I think something similar is going on with Android tablets.

Right now is the slowest sales period of the year. No matter what the price, there are not going to be a lot of Xoom or Galaxy Tab or HTC Flyer tablets sold. So prices started high in order to maximize profits on the few units that are sold.

As we move closer to the holidays, I expect the prices on big name Android tablets to move a lot closer to the current prices of the no name Android tablets.

"Eolake's musings about the world of ereaders/tablets are bolstered by his enthusiasm for well-designed technology and his insatiable search for hardware and software that improves the experience of interacting with a text."